A council trio have been given a taste of primetime TV after putting Woking on the Great British Bake Off map with an environmentally healthy treat.

The eyes of the nation were recently on Janine Knighton, Emma Bourne and Amber Ruewell as the Woking Borough Council threesome appeared on Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice.

The GBBO fans, who work in the council’s Environmental Health department, personally applied away from work to appear on the Channel 4 sideshow fronted by Jo Brand after Amber spotted an advert on social media.

Their application was successful with Janine cooking up a stunning department-themed cake, featuring caramel “sewage” and topped by a nibbling rat, for the ‘audience bakes’ segment of the show.

“Janine is amazing cake maker and she’s made cakes for friends and my wedding, so Amber thought it would be a good idea to apply together and sure enough, we got on the show,” said Emma.

There were no soggy bottoms but there were a few unseen nerves as the witty and fast-talking comedian Tom Allen grilled them and their friend, Lee, about their cake.

The Extra Slice episode which featured the WBC “three mouse-keteers” was filmed in early October and had a ‘caramel’ theme to link-in with the GBBO episode filmed well beforehand.

Janine, who baked the cake, had never made caramel before but her effort was a delicious triumph.

Woking Borough Council GBBO Cake
Janine's cake included plenty of nods to their work on the WBC Environmental Health team. It was shown off to millions as it featured on the show's 'audience bakes' section with Tom Allen. (Janine Knighton)

She said: “My cake was an environmental health themed cake because that’s our department and I wanted the cake to reflect our job and what we do.

“We tried to put as many environmental health themes as possible onto the cake, like the rat being on the top and I wanted some sort of poo on there, too.

“There were rat droppings, an open sewer, and a dog as we deal with licensable animal activities. Everything we deal with we tried to get on that cake, basically.”

Filming took place a “secret” location in London with hosts Brand and Allen being joined by special guests Prue Leith, Oti Mabuse and Chloe Petts on the episode.

And although they didn’t get the chance to talk with either of the stars during the experience, they did meet Jo after filming and “had a good chat with her”.

“Overall it was a really good and fun experience,” said Emma, who introduced herself as “The Boss” to Tom during their two-minute appearance.

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The episode corresponded with ‘caramel week’ on the latest series of Great British Bake Off. (The Great British Bake Off / Channel 4)

“It was quite interesting to see how it’s all filmed and it was great being part of the studio audience.”

Tom also joked to Amber that she probably “does all the work” after asking her what her favourite part of Environmental Health is.

She said: “We all look really calm on screen but I don’t think any of us were – we were a bit frazzled.

“We came away feeling really joyful, though.”

“We liked what they put out though and we had a lot of fun,” added Janine, who shared the cake with Amber, Emma and Lee, her family and WBC colleagues.